Inside the first-ever Aspen High Summit, a meeting of music and marijuana masterminds

“Connection, connection, connection,” Steve DeAngelo stressed to the collection of 150 cannabis and music industry insiders gathered in the Colorado mountains for the inaugural Aspen High Summit.

The first-of-its-kind conference held last week at Aspen’s Limelight Hotel connected two of the legendary cannabis activist and entrepreneur’s biggest passions in life: music and cannabis.

“It’s pretty obvious that there’s been a connection between music and cannabis for a very long time,” DeAngelo continued during his keynote address, “but what is the nature of that connection? What lies underneath it? I think that’ it’s in the singularity of the experience — good music and good cannabis can really make me feel the same way — they both activate the brain-heart connection, they stimulate each other and put one in touch with the other.”

Outside of panel discussions, attendees spent down time skiing, eating, drinking, and of course, sharing cannabis, which is “where the real magic happens,” according to Jim Lewi, founder of Aspen Live, the long-running music conference that inspired the first-of-its-kind Aspen High Summit.